Steelhands (2011) (37 page)

“Despite how much my friend likes to talk,” I said, “
almost
as much as Luvander here, he can keep a secret, too, and at least he has common sense for matters that should be kept private. Leastways when those matters don’t involve him.”

“It offends me that you are intimate with such a fascinating person,” Luvander said, “and you haven’t introduced us.”

“The world’d end,” I told him, “with both of you in the same room together. You’d both be trying to outtalk each other so hard your tongues’d fall out. Actually, he’d probably end up blasting you from here to Nevers, now that I think about it. You free Sunday?”

“Unfortunately, I’m busy bringing soup to my old friend Balfour, who isn’t feeling well at the moment,” Luvander replied. “But perhaps I could get a rain check on the introduction?”

Balfour’s laughter at that served to make us all feel better, I suspected,
and somehow Luvander and I managed to join in. But it was a serious matter—one that was going to demand a whole lot more thinking and not something a simple chuckle’d be able to solve. When I left Balfour’s apartment it was with a heavy heart, and I wasn’t looking forward to any answers I could possibly get. None of ’em made for a promising future for any of us.

Unbeknownst to Laure, who had enough difficulties of her own these days and often disapproved of my more intricate plans, I had embarked on my own private investigation, delving more deeply into the mystery of the missing Gaeth by taking matters—and a pen—into my own hands.

To begin with, I wished to resolve the issue of his mother’s gloves once and for all. In order to get them off my hands—a pun that made me very proud indeed—I would have to write directly to the source herself, the good woman to whom they truly belonged. I had been in possession of them for long enough, and, as Gaeth showed no signs of returning to reclaim them, I had only one other option: I would send them back to her forthwith.

This topic, however, was merely a small ruse upon which the rest of my plan hinged. By writing to Gaeth’s mother explaining the situation with the gloves, I would surely be able to glean some information about Gaeth’s current health. If he had truly returned home, then my inquiries after his well-being would bring a certain manner of response—but if he was
not
with his family in the countryside, then all our suspicions of his disappearance would prove to be well founded. The question of where he was would still be unanswered, but we would know for certain whether or not there was something darker afoot.

Laure was always telling me not to become carried away by my own
imagination. The trouble with this particular scenario was that I simply
couldn’t
imagine what was happening. I hadn’t been carried away at all.

Because of this, I would have to make my inquiries subtle. I did not wish to embroil myself in something too dangerous—it was possible Gaeth had been caught up in some seedy business deep in Molly and, having offended the wrong person, had been taken to task in a sudden, gruesome fashion. But truly, that did not seem like him—even though I did not know him well enough to quash all my sordid suspicions.

Writing to the mother was the best first step—and made easy because we had absconded with a letter he’d been ready to send to her, including proper postage, as well as her name and address. She was Jetta with no surname, and she lived in Borland. The place itself wasn’t even on any maps, and because of that I knew of it, as it was famous for being one of the smallest towns on the Volstovic side of Locque Nevers. Borland seemed an apt name for a place known throughout the countryside as being comprised of mud and cows. It was no wonder to me that Gaeth’s coat was so shabby and his writing so poor; and, more than ever, it seemed necessary for me to send these gloves to his mother, for who could tell what she was wearing without them? In all likelihood, she didn’t have anything.

And so I had written to her a very simple letter, inquiring after her son’s health and remarking upon his goodness in lending the items to me, then stating I was returning them to her, and I did hope she would offer her son my thanks since they had kept my hands very warm indeed.

I was in agony over waiting for a response, but I knew the post took ages in the backcountry. It was possible they wouldn’t be able to find Borland at all, and the package would be returned to me without any reply as thanks for all my cleverness.

Under normal circumstances, I would have Laure to complain to, but she seemed curiously elusive these days. I wondered if she hadn’t been taken with the fever again, since—much to my horror—it seemed to be making another sweep through the dormitories. Now more than ever, I considered myself lucky to have eluded the process altogether after the initial appointment. What sort of horror had I managed to dodge, precisely? I’d spotted both Thib and Laure’s lady friend wandering the hall at odd hours, and though I would normally have suspected
some other kind of foul play, it was clear from their tousled hair and glassy looks they weren’t sneaking off just to be with one another, else they would have been better groomed. Had they no shame when it came to being so unkempt? More importantly, did they wish to spread their vile disease among as many fellow students as possible? It was clear I would never understand the motives of some people, nor their lack of concern for the well-being of others.

Yet another clue was that our lectures the past week had been half-full even at the best of times, and I could tell poor attendance was irritating some of our professors, all of whom were busily outlining the various helpful strategies for self-paced research. Laure would have said the lack of attendance was due to how boring these lectures were, but I’d noticed that even some of the students who spent the first few weeks kissing up to the professors were missing, and so I was deeply suspicious.

It was also possible that Laure was avoiding me because she didn’t want me to force her to go to the library archives, but I’d gone to the trouble of making her up a set of quick-cards for each class, not to mention a handful of sample outlines for the essay topics I thought most likely to suit her interests. It was the nearest I could get to actually
doing
all her work for her—something which neither her pride nor my faith in her would allow.

If it turned out that she was still cross with me about the incident with the dorm leader, then I was going to become very cross with
her
in return. I had managed my best apology; the very least she could do was accept my sincerity, permitting us both to move on.

Weighted down with my study materials, I knocked at Laure’s door. The numbers screwed into the wood were badly tarnished, and I did my best not to look at them while I waited. Perhaps I’d return later with some polish, when my hands weren’t full of lecture notes. Briefly, I wondered if I had time to do it now, but my polishing handkerchief was somewhere deep in my pocket. I didn’t have time to pull it out before Laure wrenched her door open, eliminating the need for a decision one way or the other.

“Oh,” she said, looking me over, her eyes stopping on my notes like they were a pile of horse filth deposited onto her doorstep. “You’re studying already?”

I could have informed her that I’d begun my attempts at research a
week ago, but that might have made her feel insecure about her own efforts. “Am I interrupting something?” I asked instead, not sure if I wanted to hear the answer. At least her eyes were focused. That was a good sign.

“Not really,” Laure said, scratching at the back of her neck. “Suppose I forgot we were supposed to work together. Come in, then. I was just having a snack.”

I might have divined that last piece of information for myself since there were crumbs in her hair and a smudge of what must have been chocolate at the corner of her mouth. On top of that—now that I could have a better look at her—she
was
looking a little peaked and unusually pale, with twin spots of color high in her cheeks, as though she’d just returned from a bracing walk in the cold. I stared at her, trying to discern whether or not she was exhibiting symptoms of another fever, but she was doing her stubborn best not to meet my eyes.

“Are you feeling quite all right, my dear?” I asked finally.

“ ’M fine,” she said, waving her hand in irritation. “It’s been warm in the room, so it’s getting me down. Do you think someone shoved something up the chimney again while I wasn’t looking?”

“I feel that if anyone was going to begin a campaign of ruining chimneys, they most certainly wouldn’t begin with yours,” I assured her, looking about for a clean place to put my studying materials. “They’d pick an easier target, certainly. One that belonged to someone less terrifying. Like mine.”

“You can be plenty terrifying when you want,” Laure said, stretching her arms up over her head and letting out a huge yawn. “I’d be terrified myself right now if I wasn’t so tired.”

“That’s just the studying you’re afraid of.”

I glanced around the room, taking in the mess but managing to limit my visible discomfort quite commendably. Laure had allowed the fire to go out, I noticed, and despite her complaint about the temperature, I found it rather chilly. And, of course, the rest of the room was a disaster—there was simply no other word for it—her desk absolutely covered in sheets of notepaper and her clothes strewn about on the floor and over one chair. Laure had a habit of taking things off, then leaving them where they landed. She found it more convenient at home, since her room was too small to fit a proper wardrobe, but she
had
one here.

Habit was no excuse for all the clutter, nor were her usual protests that there was a method to her madness.

“Sorry ’bout the mess,” Laure mumbled, sensing my distress. Perhaps I hadn’t hidden it as well as I’d thought. “Meant to see to it before you came around, but I guess I lost track of time. You ever feel like that sometimes? Like you wake up and all of a sudden it’s getting dark and it’s time for bed already? I got no idea what’s happening to all my free time. Guess it’s just how short the days are.”

“I believe everyone feels that way when it comes time for exams,” I told her, placing my things on the lone empty chair while I cleared off the desk proper.

Despite my hopes, the papers strewn about were not our class notes. Rather, they were scraps of parchment covered in what appeared to be little drawings, a few of them charming illustrations in the style I’d come to expect from Laure—men with tall hats and women with triangular dresses, the better to distinguish them as the fairer sex. There were some, however, that looked much stranger than anything I’d ever seen her draw before—enormous black beasts with hooked claws and cruel snouts. I stared at one for a moment, attempting to make sense of it, until all the pieces came together in my head.

“Laure, have you been drawing dragons?” I asked her.

“Give me those,” Laure said, in a tone of voice that I knew meant I should acquiesce at once to avoid the trouble of being beaten soundly. “I was just having a bit of fun.”

“Perhaps you could turn these in to Professor Adamo as extra credit,” I said, with a touch of slyness. Laure really
would
hit me if I implied anything outright, but I’d heard them talking the day she’d gone to apologize.

Even if my suspicions about
her
feelings were wrong, it was evident he liked her better than any of the other students.

“Perhaps I could put my boot up your ass,” Laure said, pulling the papers out of my hands and folding them up—not, I noted, crumpling them. “Be sort of poetic justice, don’t you think, since you gave them to me?”

“Now, Laure, be reasonable,” I said. “You know as well as I that there are several different schools of etiquette when it comes to returning a gift, and not one of them would recommend
that.
”

“Just stay out of my things,” Laure huffed, shoving the drawings inside
one of the boots in question. I hadn’t meant to embarrass her, but her face was curiously red. I wanted to put my palm against her brow to check for warmth, but now didn’t seem to be the time. “You don’t always have to be cleaning up behind a person in their own room. You came here to study, and that’s all we should do.”

“If I’ve offended you
again
 …” I began, then trailed off, not sure of where to finish. The floor was still littered with skirts and stockings, but I was doing my best not to pay attention to them. “Should I come back some other time?”

Laure stared at me for a moment. The light from the window reflected off her eyes, making her irises appear far paler than usual.

“I’m sorry,” Laure said, turning away. “I didn’t mean to be a beast. It’s just this physician’s appointment’s got me feeling all out of sorts lately. Like I told you, I decided to dodge it, but they sent another reminder, and I don’t want ’em to mail Da or anything and tell him his little girl’s gone rogue in the city. Knowing him, he’ll want to pull me straight out of the program for not following orders.”

“We certainly can’t have that,” I said as mildly as I could manage. “You know as well as I do the only reason
my
father allowed me to come was because I’d have you to chaperone me in the city.”